Matthew Hutson

Matthew Hutson is a science journalist in New York City. He has a BS in cognitive neuroscience from Brown University, an MS in science writing from MIT, and more than 30 years of studying human behavior for zero course credit. From 2006-2010 he was the News Editor at Psychology Today, where his catch phrase during editorial meetings was "This one time at Burning Man..." Matt is the author of The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking (Penguin/Hudson Street 2012). His personal sites are www.SilverJacket.com and www.MagicalThinkingBook.com.

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The Magic of Contagion

Submitted by Anonymous on April 8, 2012 - 5:42am.

I'm peparing a book for publication called: From Graceland to the Holy Land: Sacred People, Places and Things in our Lives.

A key ingredient in the book is the magic of contagion - which has drawn Christian Pilgrims to Jerusalem since the 4th century, Moslems to Mecca since the 7th, and Elvis Fans to Graceland since 1977 (and before).

I read your piece in the NYTimes today, and am eager to learn more of what you know of studies of contagion.

The Journal of Consumer Research (August 2011) had two very interesting articles on this topic by Newman et al. and Fernandez et al.

I want to learn more.

Also, the role of teleological (i.e., non-randomness) thinking as it leads to the endless conspiracy theories to explains celebrity deats: Elvis, Princess Di, Jack Kennedy and such.

Too imporant to be random.

Gary Vikan - gvikan@thewalters.org